Red Sand Blue Sky: Samurai version

Besides gaming, new games are in the pipeline. After finding some cool blog posts on several cool tabletop boardgames that can be played quick and do not involve huge amounts of miniatures we bought the rules for Red Sand Blue Sky(check the site out: Two hour war-games has more cool rulesets, buy your own mini's and go!). Originally this game is for playing with gladiators but after reading this post on the possibility of playing it Samurai style we decided to go for it.

I built me a game board that should resemble a Japanese garden. With the cherry tree and specific placing of stones and nice lined gravel it really resembles what I had in mind. The sand you see, is a mixture of fine sand and watered down wood glue (PVA glue). WOrks like a charm! I thought the sand would still come off and my house would be all over after playing with it once, but it is rock solid! Good stuff.


We've ordered our samurais at Perry miniatures. Painting them just started so only basecaoted miniatures on the battlefield to show you the size.

Of course the game for gladiators we also will be playing, the arena is already made (look at this post on our blog). 4th of november it is Crisis in Antwerp, Belgium were we are heading: gladiator miniatures are on the wish list!

Sigmarites Cleansing Mordheim campaign

This is the first scenario of a short series of our own Mordheim campaign. A couple of games lead to a big end game. Each of the preliminary games lets you earn benefits for the end game. Choose one side with your war band: good or evil.


First battle: Foresstad Goblins
Sigmar is gathering minions to cleanse Mordheim for once and for all of all the filth occupying the derelict and devastated city of Mordheim. We are speaking the imperial year 2025, more then 25 years after the comet crashed down in the city. It has been long enough according to all followers of Sigmar. The acolytes are gathering enough crowd and forces to rid the city of all evil.
These plans are widely known to all inhabitants in the city and in no time around the city as well. The woodland village Foresstadt is known to be gathering all sorts of greenskins to block the plans of the Sigmarites. A nearby trade village along the river: Kindwater is said to receive all kinds of goods concerning the cleansing of Mordheim. Also in the mountains in Oberstone some evil forces are gathering and said to protecting some holy relic needed for sweeping through Mordheim.
All these cities and villages around Mordheim have something to do with the cleansing plans of the Sigmarites. Good and evil forces are gathering and plotting for the big day: midsummer year at the start of the turning of the sun festival.
First threat is the orcs and goblins gathering at Foresstadt. The city is swarming with the greenskins. The little buildings there are have to be burnt down in order to rid the village of the evil threat. Villagers are seeking refuge in their homes and need to be rescued first of course.


Setup: Put d6+3 buildings as the Foresstad village. Warbands setup at the edges of the village

The village is infested with orcs and goblins to represent this the following rules apply:
1 goblin leader + d6 goblins are roaming through the streets: random movement and cannot move of the board, will charge when in range.


Each turn throw a d6 on a 1 or 2 the equavalent goblin warriors appear and on a 3 an orc appears near the goblin leader. They will move with the leader each turn. Up to a max of 1,5 times the warband members in the biggest warband present.
Each building can be entered to:
-rescue/slay a villager (cost 1 turn no movement)
-set the building on fire (1 turn no movement)
-always roll d6 on a 1 a random encounter happens (see BTB random encounter list)
XP can be earned by:
+1xp for a rescued/slayed villager
+1xp for a building set on fire
+1xp for killing the goblin leader/escort the goblin leader of the board
+1xp for the winning leader
+1xp for surviving

Surviving warband wins (multiple warbands may win if they are of the same allignment and all warbands of other allignment are off the battlefield).

If the forces of Good win: for the final cleansing battle they gain the use of trap doors during that battle
If the forces of Evil win: They get the help of a goblin shaman during the final battle.

The battle report
Three war bands are taking part in this battle (each of the scenario's is devised in a way always multiple war bands can take part): Dwarfs, Goblins and WitchHunters.



The dwarfs take the entry road into the village to see if they can free some villagers and take out a couple of green skins. The WitchHunters enter the city from a hill side and struggle to enter the city quickly. The Goblins on the other hand, found out a rivaling war band is taking over the town. Of course this Gobbo war band wants to have the riches and is out for a good reckoning with Goblin boss in Foresstad.
In no time the Goblins found each other. From all streets reinforcements arrive but the goblin boss is soon in combat.
In the meantime the dwarfs are still strolling along the road to enter the town and the witchHunters let loose a couple of rabid dogs!



The fighting between the Goblin war bands is well along the way when some Dwarf thunderers take aim to shoot at some gobbo's. Some WhitchHunters enter the fight but meanwhile the Goblin boss is already taken and the rivaling war band is running of with him. The Dwarfs and WhitchHunters have a small skirmish. The Dwarf slayers demonstrating their skill against 5 WhitchHunters the battle is already reaching its end.
The Goblin war band won the fight. The Goblin war boss was taken and one way or the other: Goblins won!

WHFB:Dwarfs vs. Warriors of Chaos

Dwarf rangers reporting a spawn of chaos roaming the vicinity of the karak brought the dwarfs in a discussion on going out to battle the group of chaos warriors accompanying it. The dwarfs in Karak Grzzak were not a big society and only just started mining in this desolate part of the mountains. Hopes of a good vein got a small group of fortune seekers towards the far mountins.

After a lot of grumbling the dwarfs of Karak Grzzak took to war against a deamon host of Chaos warriors. This dwarf army very much represents the starting dwarf society of Karak Grzzak. Small groups of different kind of troop types got together since they are not that big yet in the karak.

A game of WHFB it is then: dwarfs vs. warriors of chaos and 1250 points. I’m still trying out a lot with my dwarfs and painting up different types of troops. These are ideal games to try out stuff with my dwarfs and 8th edition WHFB.

My opponent now put in a magic user, that was a first time in our WHFB games so far. I got around not putting in a runesmith with anti magic runes since it takes a lot of points and in these amounts of points it is not worth the points. SO magic against me en no heavy anti magic back, how would this work out? Is my theory correct? At the end of the battle it was. 2 spells against me, not too bad each turn, 1 I could dispel almost any time and the other while it was in play, I could dispel my next turn. No worries there.

The ragtag dwarf army I field was the following:
16 Dwarf Warriors with GW
10 IronBreakers
8 Hammerers Full command
10 Miners Full command
13 Thunderers Full command
5 dwarf slayers
1 Dwarf Lord
1 Dwarf cannon
1 gyrocopter

The lord went with the hammerers in order to have a big attack block. I pumped up the lord with enough runes to give him extra attacks, no return armours save etc. A real killy unit icw the hammerers.

The Chaos army consisted of:
1 lvl 2 Chaos Sorcerer, Mark of Nurgle
15 Warriors of Chaos, Mark of Nurgle
6 Ogres of Chaos, Mark of Nurgle
Chaos Warshrine
Chaos Spawn
Marauder Horseman
In retrospect it would have been so much smarter to use a unmarked Sorcerer, which would have been cheaper and could have used a new 8th edition magic lore. Oh well...

We played a scenario where the break point was calculated with the amount of banners in your army. When this comes below 1 in our case, you lose the battle. This was not known up front so I was lucky to field a lot of banners :)
I fielded the Warriors and Ironbreakers with the cannon on one side of the field and the other side got the rest. The battlefield was riddled with swamps rivers and a forest leaving the mid section occupied with all sorts of evil doing, my dwarfs did not want to entry. The Warriors of Chaos were bold as ever and entered the swamp, direcly losing one of its evil beasts. The forest proved not so lucky for the group of six Ogres. First they took a hit of the cannon killing two. On top of that my 5 slayers entered and killed some right off!



The magic of the Chaos section was not spectacular and each turn a dispell was easy (even without a runesmith or runes of spellbinding). In fact, the wizard killed more followers of Chaos than Dwarfs when a spell casted with total power resulted in a dimensional cascade that caused major damage among the chaos warriors!

The warriors of chaos were quick to move to my hammerers and thunderers. The thunders loosed some voleys bellowing the black clouds of smoke. They even mentioned to kill one or two warriors! Then the Hammerers joined close combat with my Dwarf lord and a massive onslaught followed! At the end of the battle The Hammerers and lord were victorious! The Chaos general and warriors left to a small clumb of warriors easily wiped out. All other chaos virmin was taken care of with the gyro and the cannon (a group of warhounds and a chaos sponge!)


Last hope for Chaos: A desperate all out attack on the left flank! The Ogres already down to two (Slayers and Cannon), the Warriors thinned out mostly by the Gyrocopter and a wounded Spawn. This assault failed definitely after the last remaining warriors were broken....

What a massacre and what an onslaught....for Chaos that is. My group of Dwarf warriors and ironbreakers were only running around the field to get to some hand2hand but not reaching any. The rest of the dwarfs were enough to take care of things. Even the miners after entering in turn 2 did not see any action!. Just luck in all or was it the best of tactics? Only more battles will point out what has won me this battle!

And a few last words from the losing side :-)
The battle started out not that bad: The ogres made a feint move to the right before joining the major attack on the left flank. The marauder horsemen managed to threaten the cannon, only to be blown to pieces by a grapeshot. The downfall started with the cannon hitting the ogres in the flank, killing two and wounding one. Next came the shrine, failing a 'march test' I positioned it into the swamp to stay out of reach of two blocks of dwarfs, only to be taken by the Fimir(!). On top of this all was my miserable general.. He managed to kill a dwarf or two before taking down two ranks of chaos warriors by miscasting.. Like I said before:"Oh well..."

Secude and kill?

So, my army is coming along quite well. After the victory on Tom and his dwarfs (750 points), it was time to test the daemons on another army. Arjan and I settled for a 1500 point battle on a somewhat rainy wensday, over at arjans place.

Because I can currently only field 750 points worth of daemonettes, it was time to include another fraction. Luckily for me, Arjan has some really well painted nurgle daemons which I could borrow to test on the battlefield. In my mind, the swift but vulnerable slaanesh would match quite well with the slow but o-so-realiable nurgle daemons. Since GW no longer hold srestrictions as to which factions may work together (bye bye fluff?) I can easily mix anything in my armylist up. I will be playing Arjans chaos warriors (of nurgle...), so I decide to go look for swift elements and avoid facing him head-on. Recalling from the last time I challenged Arjan, he always brings along some warriors, some marauders en a couple of annoying chaos hounds. No shooting will be involved from his side, so I should be relativly safe. Casting is probably not out of the question, but should not be on tzeensch like proportions. All in all, I decided to go with the following list:

- 1 Herald of Nurgle with staff of nurgle

- 1 Herald of Slaanesh with the musk and torment blade

- 10 Daemonettes (full command)

- 10 Daemonettes (full command)

- 20 Plaguebearers (full command)

- 7 Chaos Furies

- 5 Seekers

- 5 Seekers

- 3 Nurglings (or nurgling bases)

- 3 Fiends of Slaanesh

The original goal was to get as much of the army behind his lines, so I had at least the advantage of the rear charges. Those charges can win you a combat and since I was not to rely on my attacks, this was to be the best option.

The slaanesh part of my army turned out to be working pretty much exactly like expected. Fast movement all around, severly confusing arjan. The fiends and their stomp rule together with the magnificent 10" movement make up for a pretty tough fight. The are going to appear in all my armies from this day on. The seekers prove to be reliable and fast, but NO match for a nurgle lord, not even in the flank charge (magical attacks AUCH). The nurgle part was somewhat dissapointing. The nurgling bases are hardly a challenge for any unit. Plaguebearers might have a S and T of 4, but 4" movement and 1 on A, I and W means that they still cant hold up a decent fight. Especiallywith the low 3 weaponskill, which makes them not even a match for empire regulars. The herals however IS a promising man. It does cost yousome points, but it is hard to argue with a S, T and WS 5 hero! It does turn out I'd better put the herald in the regiment next time. Apparently they all regenerate when you do so, darn....

Unfortunately, none of us remembered to take pictures OR write a battlereport, so I can only publish my conclusions:

- It was a massacre, with both armies suffering great losses.

- Arjan won by a difference of something like 700 points

- It was really fun to do, and the match was pretty much undecided to the very last turns!

These are my lessons learned:

- Nurgle is NOT a good friend

- Never charge your surviving 3 daemonettes in an already doomed fight, hoping that rear bonus might be a turning of tides.

- Chaos warriors are tough.... really tough

- Lords are scary, even if they are called blob and ride a palaquin

This can only mean one thing though. If it is not nurgle who I must befriend, that leaves me two options:

- Khorne (hard hitting combat machines, made for destruction)

- Tzeensch (magical superiorities, made for long distance violence)

While khorne matches up with the speed of the slaanesh, it is more capable of doing great damage. Adding the magical resistence to that means that will bring more solid combat to the army. I could use that...

On the other hand, including tzeensch in my army means that my slaanesh can focus almost completely on the flank and rear combatting, leaving the magic and shooting to my fellow daemons. No real solid combat machine, but thinning the enemy units until the can be taken down by fiends and/or seekers. Flamers are a must have!

Owww .... decisions, decisions.....

Into the flames

The first unit of my Flames of War army rolls in. I've chosen the 1st Czechoslovak Army Corps as the theme for a late war Tankovy battalion. At the moment this is only visible in the Czech/Czechoslovak flag on one of the tanks. Later on I hope to add the appropiate roundels, numbers and slogans. I'm still looking for pictures of tanks in this particular army and for fitting decals in this scale. Main force will consist of T34's (what else?) in /76 and /85 versions, with support of infantry and some SU-85 tank hunters or even IS-2 (in pink?)



Painting 'historical' instead of 'fantasy' vehicles and figures was something to get used to. Many, many years ago I used to be a 'serious' model-maker and I had to rediscover some of the skills involved. And despite that the Battlefront miniatures are very nice and all five have their own distinct stowage and details, it's quite hard to create a nice paint finish for vehicles that basically were painted in one color.


Anyway, the first batch is finished, 10 more are waiting! Any comments and tips (especially on weathering effect on this scale) are welcome!

Malus Darkblade

And now for something completely different. I've been painting a lot of dwarfs recently. All the more reason to paint something different in between as a sideproject. Actually I'm still painting dwarfs but when paint dries it is nice to have a different paint object to do some painting on. I took some quick pictures just to get the idea of the finished product. I'm quite content with the cold one!

After reading all stories of Malus Darkblade and a discount at the local hobby shop on metal blisters I had to get Malus as a model. The cold one really makes this model. It comes with two heads. A rather blocky squarish plastic head and a vicious looking multipart metal head. The latter being much cooler for the model but a bit more difficult to paint and assemble. I painted the total model in separate parts for once: two sides of the cold one were glued together but that was it, the jaw, upper part of the head, torso of Malus, the sword arm and the cape were all painted before assembly. It makes for a much easier paint and gives much more detail in those hard to reach parts when painting a pre assembled model. Only the coloring on the joining parts was more difficult to get right.
I stayed with the blues for this model. The cold one being blue, the armour of Malus having a blue sheen on it and Malus' cloak is blue, even the inscriptions on the blade are a bright blue. All in all very inkeeping with the model. Malus' cloak however could have been better with a contrasting color in the end being yellow or red or something.

BTB: Mordheim, The Siege

After playing the border town burning campaign for a while, it was time for it to come to an end. We wer playing regularly (once per 4-6 weeks), but to reach the 40 campaign points is taking just to long. The campaign was good while it lasted but it was time for the final battle. The three most regular players (in this case, dwarfs, chaos and halflings) got together for this epic battle.

The dwarfs took the defence and the halflings allied with the Nurglings. Fortifying themselves behind thick walls and a big gate, the dwarfs took position. The thunders (5 strong) took ther aim from the top walls along the gate and the rest (2 slayers, one hired slayer, 4 beardlings) stood behind the gate.

Outside a blizzard was blowing strong, visibility reduced to 10 inch the dwarfs couldn't see the Nurglys setting up and the row of halfling bowmen taking position. On the other hand the evil allied forces couldn't make out a dwarf as well so all was even.
The alied forces advanced at the gate. The Nurglys sending the cheep troops up front and letting the expensive hero's do a sneak climb at the far side of the wall. A warlock flew over the wall into one of the buildings in the castle. The dwarfs started to let loose volleys of led. Blackpowder smoke obscuring the gate even more in the blizzard. They did not that much damage in subsequent turns. This could also be said for the halflings. THey were shooting flights of arrows to the wall but failing to damage a single dwarf. Turn after turn the shooting continued and 2 dwarfs went down.

Meanwhile the warlock was trying to set fire to a building with some magic. Probably the flying consumed all his energy, because he fumbled and failed epically! The rest of the Nurgly heroes were scaling the wall and the dwarfs behind the wall were doing some patroling but were too far away. The Nurglys were setting fire to a building with the three of them and clever enough trapping themselves in the fire! They were pinned and taking damage here! Finally the warlock managed to set fire to a building and it burnt down to the bottom in minutes.

The dwarfs managed to kill a thieving halfling that had hidden within the Castle walls; one of the slayers that is. The rest of the dwarfs not shooting at the horde at the gate (that was having much difficulty with the gate since only 1 member of the warband was strong enough to damage the door: the pitfighter), were running to engage combat with the Nurgly heroes. The slayers were really going down on Ticky and ShyShy, in moments only pulp was left in the hallways of the castle. The warlock didn't stand long as well and the Nurglys were thinned down.

Outside the gate the Halflings wer sick of waiting and wasting arrows and started pumping arrows in their allied Nurglys in front of them. A massive onslaught continued. After a couple of turns the halflings and Nurglys were halved. All warbands were now taking route tests each turn and it was inevitable that one warband should leav the game. When some earthquakes started to shudder the castle and surrounding grounds it was too much for the Nurglys. They ran of the battlefield. The Dwarfs were taking this bad as well, the Noble could reroll a failed route test one time (he failed the roll with a double 6) and failed the reroll just as badly (again a double 6), leaving the few halflings that were left with the victory!

What an epic battle it was, this was no doubt the biggest onslaught for all warbands. All the saved fundings were put in to expand the warbands to full capacity, resulting in this epic fight. A worthy ending of the Border town burning campaign. Now only to start searching for the new campaign setting...